Outdoor lights

Want to get some decent outdoor lights. Auto day light switching and solar powered ideally but otherwise 12v as the run will be up to 100yds with 5-10 lights on it
I've seen some outdoor leds which were very weedy . Give out very little light So what spec would I be looking for ? No of leds? Wattage ?And wht duration could I expect on a winters night where it is dark from 17:00 to 08:00
Thanks in advance for all info

A long run means more voltage drop. And 12v takes more current than 240v
ones, so more susceptible. In other words, suitable cable for that run in
12v will need to be thicker therefore more expensive than mains.
But if they are solar powered, the source of that is going to determine
what you use anyway.

Just trying to point out you'll need a solar power supply large enough for
the very worst case - a short dull day in mid winter. Which will be many
many times the size of one which would be OK in mid summer.
Which is obvious to those who understand such things. Who are very much in
a minority.

Solar powered lights tend to be useless in midwinter and often kill
their batteries stone dead if you leave them outside in the long dark
nights. Even kit like the radar activated "please go round the bend"
signs only last an hour or so after sunset and are dead in the water
every cold frosty winters morning when they might do some good. Today
has been very dull and foggy so the danger bend sign has already given
up the ghost and it isn't even dark yet.

About 3W will give enough light for a path - best configuration is full
cutoff so that you don't dazzle or add to light pollution. To work in
winter reliably it will need to be actively powered - forget solar.

+1
Short daylight hours to recharge and cold weather result in very weak
lighting and short battery life. I had a fairly expensive LED light with
a large solar cell which during the summer months would provide a good
light dusk to dawn but during the winter never more than around 4 hours
at an acceptable brightness. After around a year the light output fell
off considerably as the batteries started to fail, especially in the
cold weather.
I also have a solar charged LED light with a PIR which is still working
after 3 years. However, the PIR timing is only around 30 to 60 seconds,
triggered perhaps a couple of time per night and although fitted
outdoors it is in a sheltered location.

The OP said solar powered ideally, which means mains is available. You could supplement the solar - or replace it if running on PIR only - with a small mains 12-15v PSU sending charge current down a long thin wire.
NT

Under the worse conditions - mid winter - the batteries will be on charge
for a shorter period than the lights are running. So not quite sure how
you work out the power supply cable can be smaller than the light one?
Unless of course it is at 240v.

True but it also depends on how much light is required.
My PIR operated solar LED light (the one still working after 3 years)
illuminates around 3 x 3 metres of lawn and path area bright enough to
easily see what's on it but it is fairly bulky and has a solar cell of
20cm x 15cm. The light is constructed of 40 individual discreet LEDS.
A few more things I've observed with some solar cell lights:
Many of the cheap Chinese sourced cells have are encased in a clear
expoy?? for waterproofing. This goes milky when exposed to the sun for
more than around a year reducing efficiency, even during the Summer.
The best solar cells on lights that I've purchased are behind a sheet of
glass.
Even though the (sealed) battery compartment may look adequate the
battery fitted may be small with limited capacity. Although not
relevant to the OP application the £1[*] solar cell spike lights for
identifying garden paths with a dim glow used to come with a AA size
battery. Recently I purchased a couple from different places (I wanted
the solar cell) and found one to be fitted with a half AA size battery
and the other with something akin to a quarter size AA battery.
[*] sold for £1 to £2 each in many retail outlets but at 5x the price on
TV shopping channels.

Not enough to matter. I have a battery powered PIR triggered 3W LED lamp
over my front door and it lasts around 2 years on 3x C cells with
regular use. It was a lot more frugal on batteries than I expected.

The other thing to note is that you need something with a really good
weather seal if it is to survive in wind and rain without corroding.
Anything with a rating lower than IP55 will quickly fail outdoors.

I have one PIR with LED on for 30s after last trigger event that uses
3xC cells (and put one on our VH too). That lasts a couple of years on
one set of batteries with regular daily use. It makes it a lot easier to
find the keyhole in the pitch dark.
Incidentally a lot of the garden LED lights are designed for much lower
sunnier latitudes than the UK and so come on way too early in a UK
summer during our very long twilight and are already fading when it gets
properly dark. They are at best a buy and die novelty product.

A lot depends on what you want the lights to achieve. If you just want
to illuminate a path so that visitors don't go wandering off into the
flowerbeds or falling into the pond, the lights don't have to be very
strong. OTOH if you want the lights to be a decorative garden 'feecha'
lighting up selected areas of the garden, you will probably want them
stronger. LEDs come quite powerful these days, with many individual
LED's in a single enclosure; the corn-cob lights are a good example.
But they will draw more current than the simple path-illuminating
ones.
IME solar powered lights in the UK are useless in winter (much like
solar panels): not enough sunshine to recharge them during daylight
hours. If you want your lights on all night, they'll have to be
mains-powered, or at least a fairly large capacity battery, recharged
from the mains. But who needs the lights on all night? Surely, there's
no need for them after say midnight at the latest. Put them on a
timer, or even with a PIR motion sensor so that they only come on when
someone (or next-door's cat) activates them.

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